Photos

Enjoy the little image of Miki x Mitsuko, heh. :) We've been running another Kickstarter to help Sparkler Monthly run for another year, and we're still a little under the goal with four days left. You probably know this, but Sparkler is the digital magazine we started after Tokyo Demons: Book 1, because we wanted to be able to pay for, polish, and publish other great stories that might otherwise vanish in tiny corners of the Internet. We're extremely proud of the rest of the titles (illustrated prose, comics, and audio dramas) that run in there, all of which were carefully chosen by our picky editors, and most of the content is free to read, so we highly recommend it if you like our book! And of course, throw a few bucks at that Kickstarter, if you're so inclined. :)

In Tokyo Demons news, this has been the summer of contests! Sparkler is sponsoring a Tokyo Demons dakimakura (uh...sexy body pillow) drawn by Rem, and we've been running a bunch of polls to determine the handsome dude on that pillow. We're down to Kiyoshi vs Sachi, and poll ends tomorrow night, so cast your vote now!

In addition, we're running a Tokyo Demons Ship Contest, where a little ramble (or picture, story, etc.) about your favorite relationship in Tokyo Demons can win you a cool Tokyo Demons pouch filled with merch! We're taking entries until the end of August, so join in!

Hello, everyone! Please forgive the EXTREMELY late follow-up to our last update... Things got hectic last summer, and then we totally forgot to post updates here. -_-; Just for reference, the most updated Tokyo Demons info can be found on the Sparkler Monthly Tokyo Demons Page.

After the incredibly rocky time we had finalizing this book, I'm so proud of the final product, and it absolutely would not have happened without the support of all of you. So again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you--each and every one of you. <3

Second of all, we want to properly close this Kickstarter in the near future (can you believe it's been 4 years?!), but there are some of you who never claimed your tiers. If that includes you, you're still entitled to what you paid for, so just let me know and we'll get you your stuff! You can message me through Kickstarter or (preferably) email me directly at editorial@chromaticpress.com

However, this leads to my next point...

Third of all, there are actually a few rewards of this Kickstarter still pending (which I'm SUPER embarrassed about). We clearly overstretched ourselves, and some of these have been really difficult to finish, even if the lion's share of the work is done.

$100 and up pledges: The Book 1 Dramatized Audio Book was finished ages ago, but we've been stuck in lengthy post-production trying to remaster some of those tracks and record the last bit of bonus content. All of you will get an email about this shortly, because at the very least, I can send you an updated digital version while we work on finishing up the Complete CD set.

$9,000, video game: Although we didn't hit this Stretch Goal, through the help of Desiree K., this is actually still happening! It's just been restructured heavily, and will now take place (and be released) after Tokyo Demons: Book 3 to bridge the time period between Tokyo Demons: Book 3 and Tokyo Ghosts: Book 1.

Speaking of Tokyo Demons: Book 3--we're about halfway done with that by now! Read online here. :D

Thank you so much for your patience, sorry again for the sporadic updates, and we'll talk again soon. Don't be afraid to message me here or through email (editorial@chromaticpress.com) if you have any questions, concerns, or want to close your pledge here in some other way...for example, if you want to swap out a pending reward with the paperback of Book 2 or an ebook subscription to Book 3 or something. Whatever makes you happy!

I can't believe it's been more than two years since we ran this Kickstarter. O.O What a ride it's been!

Those of you on the $50+ tiers have been receiving regular updates on Book 2, but for the rest of you: serialization of Book 2 is finally complete. It took twice as long to serialize than Book 1 did, mostly because Book 2 is longer, Book 1 started with a backlog, and because we started a digital fiction magazine in the middle of serialization. :) For those who didn't know, we launched Sparkler Monthly last summer, a place for us to publish the comics, illustrated prose, and audio dramas of other great creators (and pay advances, to boot!). Tokyo Demonsmoved into it, but thanks to your generous support, back chapters aren't subject to the paywall that most of the other serials have. You subsidized it, and we can't thank you enough for that. <3

We're putting together the final materials for the revised ebook version of Book 2 (which will include a never-before-seen story about Nick), and rem released some incredible early art of the cover:

From left to right: Mitsuko, Sachi, Kiyoshi (post-makeover), Miki.

We'll be releasing the ebook sometime in July. $50+ pledges will get notification by email, and we'll post another update here as well.

For you $100+ pledges, more good news: the Book 1 audio book is also finally complete! If we're talking about projects that took much longer than anticipated, that one takes the prize--almost three years from start to finish. (With all the bonus material, it clocks in at about fourteen hours of meticulously edited audio.) Again, thanks to your subsidy, the audio book is free to stream, so you can click that link and listen to the whole thing right now! We're revising some of the old chapters and putting together more bonus material, so the complete set for you guys will probably be ready in early August. We'll let you know!

We released about half of our stretch goals during the serialization of Book 2, and the other half will be rolling out in the coming months. But we'll save that for our next update--there's a lot to go over!

Also, I'd like to take a moment to say something about another one of our light novels...Gauntlet, written by Ellery Prime and T2A (teaat2am), was chosen as the first illustrated prose novel to run alongside Tokyo Demons in Sparkler Monthly, and we worked carefully with the creators to make the book as awesome as possible. But now, unlike our Off*Beat Kickstarter, the Gauntlet paperback Kickstarter is in serious danger of not succeeding. Illustrated novels in English are a tough sell, so if you enjoyed Tokyo Demons, please consider checking out Gauntlet and helping us bring the creators' hard work into paperback form. (And tell your friends, if you think it would be up their alley!) The tier buy-ins are much lower for Gauntlet, since it's not on the Tokyo Demons subsidy model.

Thanks, guys! You'll hear from us a lot in the next few months, as we finally bring this GIANT project to a close. Thank you for all your support, and for sticking around this long!

Now that the Kickstarter is complete, I can finally say it - we did it, and we raised more than 250% of our goal!

You all have been insanely generous--this Kickstarter was an amazing success, well beyond what Rebecca and I were hoping for. For those of you wondering why we had the fundraiser running so long (45 days for $3K), we honestly weren't sure we could raise the $3K...when you publish under a "free content" model, fundraisers can be terrifying, so we were trying to leave enough of a time cushion for people to read the archives on our site, if they were interested.

But we reached out goal of $3K in a week, and we instead had to scramble to think of new prizes for higher totals. Since we ended very close to $8,000 on Kickstarter but raised some additional funds in our site store these past 45 days, we're going to push up the overall rewards to the $8,000 level. That means your total donations have unlocked the following:

1.) A bonus short story on the site for a character chosen by vote.

2.) A bonus short story from our second series (Tokyo Ghosts).

3.) A Character/Talk CD modeled off the Japanese style for a character chosen by vote.

4.) The development of a Tokyo Demons tactical card game.

5.) A bonus short story with the theme, plot, etc. chosen by vote.

The ONLY prize we didn't unlock was the Tokyo Demons: Book 2 video game at $9,000, but we haven't shelved the idea yet--we may raise a separate (smaller) fundraiser on the site later or find some alternative method of funding, since that is BY FAR the most expensive and difficult spin-off we were thinking of. :) We'll keep everyone informed of this at www.tokyodemons.com

Backers will receive a survey shortly asking for contact info, credit name, shipping address, etc. so you can receive your prizes. Most of the Book 1 prizes will roll out over the next month or two (the eBook will be ready soonest, in a week or two), and Book 2 should begin sometime in June. And it's only starting because of YOU.

Thank you, again, from the bottom of our hearts. You guys are seriously awesome.

I was trying to make my last update the final one, but I have to share this. Our illustrator rem did an adorable little Tokyo Demons illustration to push us through the last 36 hours of our Kickstarter. She posted about it at http://tsulala.tumblr.com/post/21676855265

Thank you all so much! We're so close to $9K, and no matter what, we've all done awesome and it's all thanks to YOU!